Thursday, April 19, 2007

Why Straight Women Can Be Annoying

I love straight women. Really, I do. LOVE them. Most women I know and love are, in fact, straight women. But sometimes, when it comes to their fertility, they just don't know how lucky they have it!

Example. We went to our "How To Shoot Expensive Meds Correctly Into Your Body" workshop with a lovely nurse from the hospital. 2 other women were there, both definitely straight and without their husbands present. The first problem is that the seminar is very hetero-centric. Not that I was offended by that, but the nurse made sure to tell ALL of us, without exception, that after we take the hcg shot, we should have intercourse that night. Hmmm....now, I could, indeed, have intercourse the same night, but it probably wouldn't have the same result as these other two women.

Okay, problem number two was that the nurse assumes that everyone's uber-expensive fertility drugs are going to be covered by insurance, as are all the procedures (IUI, ultrasounds, etc.). For us, not so much. So that really vexed me. And here's why it vexed me more--these other two women, while I'm sure were perfectly nice, clearly didn't have as great a clue as WE, the two gay women who aren't having their procedures covered. We know what an IUI is, we know how to go through the rigamarole of inseminations, we know what an HCG shot does, and we know when we can inseminate after an HCG has been given. These two didn't seem as clued in. Now granted, if they're at this point in their conception--to the point of injectible fertility meds, that is--they probably have some clue as to their inner working. You know, timing ovulations, temping, blah blah blah....but it just didn't seem like they were on the same page as us.

I guess I really shouldn't be crowing about this, because for one thing, their sperm is free, and another, the meds are probably covered. So what do we get for being so knowledgable and with it? A big, fat credit card bill.

5 comments:

Sara said...

It really does suck. The other day, I was just chatting with a straight friend of mine who is having trouble getting pregnant. I had to point out that she has a much better chance of getting pregnant in any given month than I do. She's actually got sperm & we don't. I think it's something that straight women tend to take for granted, whereas I can't stop thinking about it!!

Anonymous said...

bah.
Did you bring these issues up to the nurses after your session was over?

Dr. Grumbles said...

I am a straight women whose meds are not covered. And intercourse doesn't seem to do much good for me either. It is odd that the nurse would emphasize intercourse so much when injectible meds are so often used with IUI. That would have annoyed me, too, even if I didn't catch on to the heterocentrism.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I would have felt VERY frustrated from the meeting. Maybe you should have naively asked, "I'm sorry, I don't understand: can you explain how two women having intercourse could result in a pregnancy? Because we've been doing something VERY WRONG!" hehe.

Lo said...

I like A's approach. :-)